I caught this series thanks to my daughter. Yes, it’s amazing how much discovery channel you can watch while feeding a 9 month old baby her breakfast. Race to mars is a drama about an international joint manned mission to mars, while based on mostly existing technology, and so erring away from science fiction, it isn’t quite the drama/documentary that the BBC’s series regarding a tour of the solar system was (I forget its name but it was good too). This is definitely a drama.
While it was clearly not shot on the biggest budget, no household names in the cast, CG is a few generations old; it made for remarkably compelling viewing.
As a slight interlude, the film Sunshine disappointed me. Why? Because Sunshine was so close to being a really good film regarding people doing a perilous thing in space. It should have been about people getting narky living in cramped claustrophobic close quarters and of genuine danger inherent in low tech space travel. Instead they gave us a monster man half way through. Fortunately Race to mars gets just about all its drama from the dangers inherent in flying a tin can to a distant planet, and its all the better for it.
SPOILER WARNING
There is actually a nice fake out near the end regarding a Martian Virus, not sure if it’s actually a spoiler but it made me smile.
So, if you can find this on the discovery channel again, I can heartily recommend this. Danny boyl, take note.
Sounds quite interesting. Another series on Discovery I'll need to keep my eye open for.
ReplyDeleteAs an aside,I completely agree about Sunshine. The first half (maybe three quarters?) is really, really good. And then it just goes completely off the rails.
I know, first half was "We are on a really dnagerous mission, all going a bit cabin fever and faced with dangers of flying at the fricking sun. Apparently thiygh they decided a burnt toasty nutter was what they really needed for danger. I'd been enjoying it up till then
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